enigma, until suddenly, like a ray of sunlight, there shot into the
darkness of my doubt the discovery that in its essence my work was nothing
but the necessary outcome of what others had achieved--that my theory was
in no way out of harmony with the numerous theories of my predecessors, but
that rather, when thoroughly understood, it was the very truth after which
all the other economists had been searching, and upon the track of
which--and this I held to be decisive--I had been thrown, not by my own
sagacity, but solely by the mental labours of my great predecessors. In
other words, _the solution of the social problem offered by me is the very
solution of the economic problem which the science of political economy has
been incessantly seeking from its first rise down to the present day_.

But, I hear it asked, does political economy possess such a problem--one
whose solution it has merely attempted but not arrived at? For it is
remarkable that in our science the widest diversity of opinions co-exists
with the most dogmatic orthodoxy. Very few draw from the existence of the
numberless antagonistic opinions the self-evident conclusion that those
opinions are erroneous, or at least unproved; and none are willing to admit
that--like their opponents--they are merely seeking the truth, and are not
in possession of it. So prevalent is this tenacity of opinion which puts
faith in the place of knowledge that the fact that every science owes its
origin to a problem is altogether forgotten. This problem may afterwards
find its solution, and therewith the science will have achieved its
purpose; but without a problem there is no investigation--consequently,
though there may be knowledge, there will be no science. Clear and simple
cognisances do not stimulate the human mind to that painstaking,
comprehensive effort which is the necessary antecedent of science; in
brief, a science can arise only when things are under consideration which
are not intelligible directly and without profound reflection--things,
therefore, which contain a problem.